Globalisation: Homogeneity or Diversity Exercise

Applying concepts of McDonaldisation and Disneyfication to contemporary cultural products helps students get to grips with the concept of globalisation (particularly its cultural form, but also its economic form). These concepts also provide a relatively easy way for students to explore some of the effects of globalisation in terms of cultural homogenisation and diversity theories. The […]

McDonaldisation

George Ritzer has used the analogy of McDonalds (hence, “McDonaldisation”) to illustrate the rationalization of society and culture through 5 distinctive processes: Efficiency Calculability Predictability Irrationality Control. This poster gives you a bit more information about each.

Disneyfication

Bryman’s (1999) concept of “disneyfication” refers to the various processes involved in contemporary social and organisational change and for our (A-level) purposes we can understand these processes in terms of 4 key concepts: Theming De-differentiation of Consumption Merchandising Emotional Labour. If you want to explore these ideas further this simple poster should suffice.

Revise Psychology: Reductionism

Psychology Revision series for A-level and AP Psychology teachers and students. This revision film uses the example of obesity to outline and evaluate reductionist and holistic approaches in psychology. The full film is available to rent (7 days) or buy from and covers key: definitions: reductionism, scientific parsimony, holism applications: obesity, evaluations: uses and limitations […]

Psychology: Socially-Sensitive Research

Socially-Sensitive Research looks at ways to help you structure exam answers around three key questions: Should the research be done? How should research findings be used? How should research findings be communicated? The full film – now available for digital download to rent or buy – covers key: knowledge: understanding social sensitivity, ethics examples: Autism […]

New Media: 1. Features

This short series of blog posts looks at various dimensions of new media, beginning with a broad overview of some key distinquishing features: As Socha and Eber-Schmid (2012) argue “Part of the difficulty in defining New Media is that there is an elusive quality to the idea of new”. This “elusive quality” can, perhaps, be […]

New Media: 2. Issues

The various features of new media raise a new set of issues for both producers and consumers. In terms of the former, for example, the development of global computer networks have presented problems for media industries whose products are relatively easy to copy and distribute, with no loss of quality because of digital reproduction. The […]

New Media 3: Implications – digital optimism

The development of new media has led to a general debate about the implications of changing technologies and their impact on economic, political and cultural life, polarised around two opposing views – the first of which can be characterised as: digital optimism From this viewpoint the defining characteristic of new media is a form of […]

Psychology: The Nature-Nurture Debate

This revision film frames and explains the nature-nurture debate around two classic applications: Bandura’s BoBo doll and Fallon’s neuroscience experiments.   The full film, now available as a digital download to rent or buy, covers key revision: knowledge: framing the nature-nurture debate, neuroscience applications: psychological approaches, Bandura, Fallon evaluation: the arguments for and against nature / […]

New Media 4: Implications – digital pessimism

An alternative interpretation – digital pessimism – argues the globalising processes on which new media depends are neither wholly beneficial nor unambiguous; while globalisation involves decentralising processes, for example, it also produces greater centralisation across economic, political and cultural behaviours. In economic terms “free” business models are only free in the sense they have costs […]